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A survey of 2,002 8- to 18-year-olds' recreational use of a variety of media (TV, movies, computers, video games, music, print) found that:

Source: The Kaiser Family Foundation; margin of error +/- 3.9%

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

Being a friend of Chandler DeWitt's means never having to say "Where are you?" The freshman at North Carolina's High Point University says she and her friends have "six or seven ways" to get in touch most days: cellphone, texting, instant messaging, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and Skype videoconferencing.

"I'm probably on my computer four hours out of the day, doing different stuff for school or talking to people," says DeWitt, 18, who, for all her connectivity, turns out to be a "light" media user: A new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that kids spend more than 71/2 hours a day with electronic media, up from about six hours in 1999.

Most young people have a cellphone and an iPod ó and nearly one in three own a laptop computer.

But the survey also reveals that the more media they use, the less happy young people tend to be.

Heavy media users, it finds, are more likely to have bad grades, more likely to be "often sad or unhappy," less likely to get along well with their parents and twice as likely to "get into trouble a lot."

What's a "heavy media user"? A child who consumes more than 16 hours of media content in a typical day, according to the study. A "light user" consumes fewer than three hours of media.

Actually, the findings present a sort of chicken-and-egg scenario: Does consuming a lot of media make children's lives more troubled, or do troubled kids simply consume more media?

Interviews with parents, media experts and a handful of teens suggest it's a bit of both. In the end, a simple answer seems elusive.

Perhaps it's that heavy media users have fewer friends? Actually, they're more likely to say they have "a lot of friends" ó 93% vs. 91% for other kids.

Perhaps they don't get enough exercise? Actually, the survey shows, they somehow cram more physical activity into their days than others ó just short of two hours, compared with 1 hour and 44 minutes for light media users.

"It's really creating a different mode of experiencing childhood," says Karen Sternheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern California. "We don't really know what the endgame is, and that's what makes people nervous."

Fitting in or tuning out?

Think it's just young people whose happiness splits along these lines? Not so, she says. "My guess is that we're going to find really similar results for adults, too ó the happiness issue for adults might even be bigger."

Omead Kohanteb, 18, a freshman at the University of California-Berkeley, says Facebook and cellphones have made it easy for him to fit in on campus and make friends: He estimates that 99% of students have cellphones: "Everyone I've met has one."

But media can just as easily create a wall, says 14-year-old Morgan Sosic, a freshman at Orange High School near Cleveland. She has an iPod loaded with her favorite bands ó Never Shout Never, Alesana and Stephen Jerzak, among others ó and says popping in earbuds while she's riding the school bus is the perfect way to tell people to, in so many words, Go away.

"It's 6 a.m. and you don't want anybody bothering you," she says. "People know not to talk to you."

I do kind of wonder about this (for adults, too). At the end of the day I usually have actual RL productivity to look back on: knitting, gardening, cooking, reading,,etc., and that doesn't count work. If your whole experience of life is just talking and consuming media, how does that affect you?

Actually, the findings present a sort of chicken-and-egg scenario: Does consuming a lot of media make children's lives more troubled, or do troubled kids simply consume more media?

Interviews with parents, media experts and a handful of teens suggest it's a bit of both. In the end, a simple answer seems elusive.

They can't just explain it away with a wide generalization and percentages?

Seriously, this is interesting, but there are way too many variables to say that "heavy media use is bad". Some folks are wired that way, the media they are using would have major effects on their attitudes (16 hours a day of emo and DU compared to the same of praise music and Rush Limbaugh :D ) among other possibilites.

Romans 6:18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

Differences between Obama and God: God's plan to save us is actually written down for people to read. Rush Limbaugh.